Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Part Deux: Kdrama Franchises

Two worlds collide in Answer Me 1994

One of the things I love most about
Korean television is the finite nature of its dramas. They’re each
novelistic in their completeness—free-standing, independent stories
with a beginning, middle, and end.

These days, though, the trend is toward
something a bit different: The drama franchise. From the
Answer Me shows to the
Flower Boy series, more and more dramas seem to be part of an ongoing
brand. And while these individual shows may share a common name, they’re
almost always distinct stories built around a unique set of
characters, rather than what we Westerners would consider a
subsequent season or a true sequel.

It’s
easy to see why the Drama Overlords would like franchise series. You
don’t have to start from scratch when you’re promoting I
Need Romance 3—there’s
instant name recognition, and potential viewers know exactly what to
expect from your show. People who are familiar with the product are
likely to tune in out of habit, unlike shows that are presented as
fully separate entities. It also ties old dramas (what people in book
publishing would call “the backlist”) to currently airing series,
giving them new life by encouraging viewers to catch up with reruns
and DVD box sets. I bet it’s also easier to sell a known quantity
like a franchise drama abroad, and international markets sure are
like catnip to the folks behind Korean television.

If you want to be
cynical and jaded about it (as I often do), contemporary franchises
offer the Drama Overlords another perk. You don’t necessarily need
to pay for a big-name star, director, or writer to get publicity for
these shows—the franchise name is what ties them together, allowing
you to can jettison cast and crew at will rather than working hard to
keep them happy over the long term.

Franchise
building isn’t a new strategy for Kdramas. The late-90s School
series ran for four seasons before inspiring last year’s School
2013 reboot, while
the High Kick shingle produced three successful sitcoms in the mid
2000s. My arch-nemesis Kim Eun Sook’s Lovers trilogy also fits the
bill, including Lovers in Prague, Lovers in Paris, and
Lovers. (I watched the
last one long before I knew who Kim Eun Sook was. Guess what? I hated
it.)

I think it’s
especially interesting how fluid these collections of dramas can be.
Most of them share common themes, like Answer Me’s
pop-culture-flavored coming of age stories. But some of them are held
together by little more than their names. The Flower Boy shows are
barely related beyond their casts of eponymous dream boats. All four
shows have a youthful vibe and feature stylistic visuals, but they
run the gamut from gritty, realistic explorations of friendship to
broad comedies about ramyun.

The
Endless Love cycle—Autumn in my Heart, Winter Sonata,
Summer Scent, and Spring
Waltz—is another franchise
series with an extremely loose theme. The uniting factor is what the
director called “pure love,” although three of the shows also
feature first loves who are cruelly separated as children, only to
find each other as adults. The Wikipedia page devoted to these dramas notes that the they were grouped together like this only after the
first two installments became international successes, which sounds
to me like the smartest marketing ploy ever. I’m sure I’m not the
only one with a completist’s heart who watched all four shows, and
their common name definitely helped them reach huge audiences around
the world.

The first season of Rude Miss Young Ae premiered in 2007.
(For context, that season completed its run before Coffee Prince opened for business, but new episodes are still being made.)

Cable
network tvN is particularly fond of franchise dramas, even airing
Rude Miss Young Ae, an
Office-style sitcom
that’s lasted for 12 seasons with the same characters, cast, and
ongoing storylines. There are also a smattering of recent,
smaller-scale franchises on other networks. Some of these shows might
be more accurately considered companion pieces, like SBS’s makjang
revenges Temptation of a Wife (2008)
and Temptation of an Angel (2009)and KBS’s grownup rom-coms
Queen of Housewives (2009)and Queen of Reversals
(2010). Even
the currently airing JTBC drama Can we Love is
being tied to 2012’s Can We Get Married with
its title, although as far as I can tell a director is the only thing
the two shows have in common.

Here’s a quick
rundown of the franchises I’ve watched.

Answer Me, tvN,
2012–2014(?)

Answer Me, 1997

Answer Me, 1994

Common Themes:
Fangirl love, mysterious love
triangles that play out over two time periods

Crossovers: The kids from AM1997 make cameos in later episodes of AM1994

Worst: It’s
a fine show, but Answer Me, 1994 rode
its marital mystery into the ground

I Need Romance,
tvN, 2011–2014(?)

I Need Romance

I Need Romance
2012

I Need Romance 3

Common themes:
The line between comfortable
familiarity and romantic love; sex

Crossovers: A secondary character in the original becomes a male lead 2012, and one of its female leads does a brief cameo. None in the third as of yet, but a character really obviously lives in the same apartment complex as someone in the earlier shows

Best: The
original wins out with its iconoclastic take on romance in the modern
world

Worst: While it was still
worth watching, I Need Romance 2012 was
too traditionally minded by far

Endless Love,
KBS, 2000–2006

Autumn in My
Heart

Winter Sonata

Summer Scent

Spring Waltz

Common themes: forbidden love; misery

Crossovers: Song Seung Hun plays unrelated male leads in Autumn in My Heart and Summer Scent. (And no, his acting didn’t really improve over the years.) A number of secondary actors in each installment

Best: My
beloved fairytale Spring Waltz, an
ultimately happy tragedy full of beautiful people and places

Worst: The
glacially slow Summer Scent, which
should be prescribed to insomniacs

Flower Boy
series, tvN, 2011–2013(?)

Flower Boy Ramyun Shop

Shut Up: Flower Boy Band

Flower Boy Next Door

Dating Agency: Cyrano

Common themes:
Cute boys; youth

Crossovers: Cyrano’s male lead cameos in Flower Boy Next Door

Best: A
tie between Shut Up’s
heartbreaking rock ’n’ roll coming of age story and Flower
Boy Next Door’s sweet,
character-driven romance

Worst: The
manic, live-action cartoon known as Flower Boy Ramyun Shop,
closely followed by boring, episodic Cyrano, which
I haven’t even been able to bring myself to finish watching

8 comments:

"Common themes: forbidden love; MISERY" hahaha. Too right.I'm not sure how I feel about this trend yet - whether it works for me, or not. Most problematic with the lumping together of dramas though is if I didn't like one of the originals, I'm not bothering with the rest. Ex: the Lovers 'trilogy'As for the flower boys, I think they're so vastly different from each other that I barely think of them together anymore. How on earth are you supposed to liken SUFBB to ramyun shop??

I remember being shocked (and a little bit angry) when I watched Vampire Prosecutor 1 and discovered that it had a part 2 that was actually related to the first series. Then the second season ended on a cliffhanger, and they never got around to making season 3, which reminded me why I love self-contained kdrama stories so much.

I really want to watch I Need Romance 3, but I kind of feel like I should watch the original one first to get a feel for it. What would you recommend? I'm skipping the second one for sure. I don't know of anyone who really loved that one.

I got into the second High Kick (High Kick Through the Roof) because I saw a couple of reruns while in Korea. I just found it hilariously accessible even without subtitles. Plus, I recognized Oh Hyun Kyung from Gloria.) I just finished watching the whole series and I really loved it.

Because I was in withdrawal, I tried watching Unstoppable High Kick (the first series, which has at least one lead actor in common), but I just couldn't get into it. I've read comments from people who say the first series is terrific, but I think you can't discount the attachment you form to the characters, actors and relationships - things which don't necessarily translate across into other products in the franchise.

Also, Shin Se Kyung. Why is there no Shin Se Kyung in the other franchise entries? There's your problem right there :).

Nice post, Amanda! Maybe I'll give R1997 another try; despite everyone saying it's one of the best dramas in the past few years, I ended up dropping it (I don't particularly remember why, I didn't dislike the show).

I don't know if you take requests for your blog posts, but I would love to see an updated "Playing Favorites" encompassing everything you've seen up to this point. Or maybe a least favorite drama post? Hehe, sorry. Love your blog!

So far, I'm loving the franchises tvN has released over the years. Though I've only watched two from the Flower Boy series and I'm only in the middle of watching I Need Romance 3, both from the Reply franchise have won me over from their first few episodes alone. I love how tvN is always the ray of hope during bleak K-drama seasons. So I don't mind this franchise thing going on. :)